Power industry, federal government coordinate on power restoration after Hurricane Ida

The U.S. electric power industry and its federal government partners continue to coordinate on power restoration efforts for the approximately one million impacted customers on Tuesday after Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana and Mississippi.

Electric company crews worked through the night to restore power to 67,000 customers, according to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). More than 25,000 workers from at least 32 states and the District of Columbia are mobilized for the power restoration effort.

According to the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), which operates as the principal link between the federal government and electric power industry for disaster and infrastructure threat preparation and response, the many road closures, flooding and other accessibility issues were hindering the ability of crews to reach certain areas. 

“The transmission system is the backbone of the energy grid,” the ESCC said in a statement. “As a result of Hurricane Ida’s catastrophic intensity, major transmission lines that deliver power into New Orleans and many rural areas are currently out of service, and crews continue to assess the extent of the damage. The damage assessments will provide more clarity of the work needed to ensure an efficient power restoration process and will allow crews to develop contingency plans should the damage require a longer-duration rebuild of the impacted infrastructure.”

The ESCC said it began convening calls last week to discuss preparations in advance of the storm and is highly engaged now with senior officials from the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and National Security Council (NSC), and with executives from all segments of the electric power industry.

Because of the extent of damage and rebuilding required, Entergy Corp. said it expected recovery to be difficult and challenging, and that customers in the hardest-hit areas should expect extended power outages lasting for weeks.

As of 11 a.m. Tuesday, Entergy reported that its crews had restored power to an additional 85,000 customers. At its height, approximately 895,000 customers of Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana had lost power due to Ida, regarded as one of the strongest storms to have ever struck Louisiana with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.

“Ida hit Louisiana especially hard,” Entergy wrote in a system update today. “The worst damage seen so far is in the south, southeast, Baton Rouge and New Orleans metro regions, with significant flooding reported in the southeast region. In Mississippi, the hardest-hit areas include the Brookhaven/McComb and Natchez/Gloster areas. Damage assessment continues using drones, helicopters and scouts on the ground, and should be nearly complete today.”

Presently, Entergy estimates that 46 percent of its Mississippi customers hit by the storm have had their power restored, compared to 7 percent in Louisiana. Many complications have arisen for that restoration process: the high winds damaged some of Entergy’s generating plants in the New Orleans area, even as major transmission lines to several Louisiana parishes were taken entirely out of service. A transmission tower tumbled and much of the redundancy in Entergy’s transmission system was destroyed.